Hard Times by Charles Dickens (ebooks that read to you txt) 📕
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Hard Times (originally Hard Times—For These Times) was published in 1854, and is the shortest novel Charles Dickens ever published. It’s set in Coketown, a fictional mill-town set in the north of England. One of the major themes of the book is the miserable treatment of workers in the mills, and the resistance to their unionization by the mill owners, typified by the character Josiah Bounderby, who absurdly asserts that the workers live a near-idyllic life but they all “expect to be set up in a coach and six, and to be fed on turtle soup and venison, with a gold spoon.” The truth, of course, is far different.
The other major topic which Dickens tackles in this novel is the rationalist movement in schooling and the denigration of imagination and fantasy. It begins with the words “Now, what I want is, Facts,” spoken by the wealthy magnate Thomas Gradgrind, who is supervising a class at a model school he has opened. This indeed is Gradgrind’s entire philosophy. “Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else.” He is supported and encouraged in this approach by his friend Bounderby. Grandgrind raises his own children on these principles, and, as we discover, in doing so blights their lives.
The novel also follows the story of a particular mill-worker, Stephen Blackpool, who leads a tragic life. He is burdened with an alcoholic, slatternly wife, who is mostly absent from his life, but who returns at irregular intervals to trouble him. This existing marriage, and the near-impossibility of divorce for someone of his class, prevents him marrying Rachael, who is the light of his life. Dickens depicts Stephen as representing the nobility of honest work, and contrasts his character with that of the self-satisfied humbug Josiah Bounderby who represents the worst aspects of capitalism.
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- Author: Charles Dickens
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“Mrs. Gradgrind,” said her husband, solemnly, “what do you mean?”
“Whatever I am to call him, Mr. Gradgrind, when he is married to Louisa! I must call him something. It’s impossible,” said Mrs. Gradgrind, with a mingled sense of politeness and injury, “to be constantly addressing him and never giving him a name. I cannot call him Josiah, for the name is insupportable to me. You yourself wouldn’t hear of Joe, you very well know. Am I to call my own son-in-law, Mister! Not, I believe, unless the time has arrived when, as an invalid, I am to be trampled upon by my relations. Then, what am I to call him!”
Nobody present having any suggestion to offer in the remarkable emergency, Mrs. Gradgrind departed this life for the time being, after delivering the following codicil to her remarks already executed:
“As to the wedding, all I ask, Louisa, is—and I ask it with a fluttering in my chest, which actually extends to the soles of my feet—that it may take place soon. Otherwise, I know it is one of those subjects I shall never hear the last of.”
When Mr. Gradgrind had presented Mrs. Bounderby, Sissy had suddenly turned her head, and looked, in wonder, in pity, in sorrow, in doubt, in a multitude of emotions, towards Louisa. Louisa had known it, and seen it, without looking at her. From that moment she was impassive, proud and cold—held Sissy at a distance—changed to her altogether.
XVI Husband and WifeMr. Bounderby’s first disquietude on hearing of his happiness, was occasioned by the necessity of imparting it to Mrs. Sparsit. He could not make up his mind how to do that, or what the consequences of the step might be. Whether she would instantly depart, bag and baggage, to Lady Scadgers, or would positively refuse to budge from the premises; whether she would be plaintive or abusive, tearful or tearing; whether she would break her heart, or break the looking-glass; Mr. Bounderby could not all foresee. However, as it must be done, he had no choice but to do it; so, after attempting several letters, and failing in them all, he resolved to do it by word of mouth.
On his way home, on the evening he set aside for this momentous purpose, he took the precaution of stepping into a chemist’s shop and buying a bottle of the very strongest smelling-salts. “By George!” said Mr. Bounderby, “if she takes it in the fainting way, I’ll have the skin off her nose, at all events!” But, in spite of being thus forearmed, he entered his own house with anything but a courageous air; and appeared before the object of his misgivings, like a dog who was conscious of coming direct from the pantry.
“Good evening, Mr. Bounderby!”
“Good evening, ma’am, good evening.” He drew up his chair, and Mrs. Sparsit drew back hers, as who should say, “Your fireside, sir. I freely admit it. It is for you to occupy it all, if you think proper.”
“Don’t go to the North Pole, ma’am!” said Mr. Bounderby.
“Thank you, sir,” said Mrs. Sparsit, and returned, though short of her former position.
Mr. Bounderby sat looking at her, as, with the points of a stiff, sharp pair of scissors, she picked out holes for some inscrutable ornamental purpose, in a piece of cambric. An operation which, taken in connection with the bushy eyebrows and the Roman nose, suggested with some liveliness the idea of a hawk engaged upon the eyes of a tough little bird. She was so steadfastly occupied, that many minutes elapsed before she looked up from her work; when she did so Mr. Bounderby bespoke her attention with a hitch of his head.
“Mrs. Sparsit, ma’am,” said Mr. Bounderby, putting his hands in his pockets, and assuring himself with his right hand that the cork of the little bottle was ready for use, “I have no occasion to say to you, that you are not only a lady born and bred, but a devilish sensible woman.”
“Sir,” returned the lady, “this is indeed not the first time that you have honoured me with similar expressions of your good opinion.”
“Mrs. Sparsit, ma’am,” said Mr. Bounderby, “I am going to astonish you.”
“Yes, sir?” returned Mrs. Sparsit, interrogatively, and in the most tranquil manner possible. She generally wore mittens, and she now laid down her work, and smoothed those mittens.
“I am going, ma’am,” said Bounderby, “to marry Tom Gradgrind’s daughter.”
“Yes, sir,” returned Mrs. Sparsit. “I hope you may be happy, Mr. Bounderby. Oh, indeed I hope you may be happy, sir!” And she said it with such great condescension as well as with such great compassion for him, that Bounderby—far more disconcerted than if she had thrown her workbox at the mirror, or swooned on the hearthrug—corked up the smelling-salts tight in his pocket, and thought, “Now confound this woman, who could have even guessed that she would take it in this way!”
“I wish with all my heart, sir,” said Mrs. Sparsit, in a highly superior manner; somehow she seemed, in a moment, to have established a right to pity him ever afterwards; “that you may be in all respects very happy.”
“Well, ma’am,” returned Bounderby, with some resentment in his tone: which was clearly lowered, though in spite of himself, “I am obliged to you. I hope I shall be.”
“Do you, sir!” said Mrs. Sparsit, with great affability. “But naturally you do; of course you do.”
A very awkward pause on Mr. Bounderby’s part, succeeded. Mrs. Sparsit sedately resumed her work and occasionally gave a small cough, which sounded like the cough of conscious strength and forbearance.
“Well, ma’am,” resumed Bounderby, “under these
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